THE MODERN ALCHEMIST
ment has meant many millions of dollars
to the peach industry of that State.
ORIENTAL PLANT EXPLORATIONS
China has proved a fruitful field for
this work, and an explorer has been kept
there constantly during the year. His
work has taken him through the little
known regions of southern Siberia, the
border of Manchuria, the excessively dry
mountains west of Pekin, and through
the fertile country between Pekin and
Hankau. This explorer has sent to this
country over a thousand living seed and
plant specimens for trial. Among these
are promising blackberries and currants
from northern Korea; a north Man
churian apple; a collection of 24 named
pears from north China; several bush
cherries and plums and peaches from
northern Siberia - perhaps the very
northern limit of peach culture in the
Orient; drought-resistant alfalfas; dry
land rices; staple foods of the native
Manchurians, but unknown to us, from
regions where the climate is similar to
that of the Dakotas; and a cherry noted
for remarkable earliness, ripening its
fruit in mid-April in northern California.
Besides these, the explorer has sent in a
large number of ornamental plants which
our nurserymen have been for some time
anxious to secure, because of the unusual
hardiness of these north. China species.
NEW ALFALFAS AND CLOVERS
During the year an explorer has re
turned with seeds of the yellow-flowered
Siberian alfalfa, and these seeds have
grown into promising plants in the severe
climate of the Northwest. The results of
their trial will determine whether we shall
import large quantities of the seed, as we
have previously done with the Turkestan
and Arabian alfalfas, both of which con
tinue in their respective territories to gain
in popularity. The Toten clover, also se
cured from Norway, where it is culti
vated for its extreme hardiness, is being
tested in the Dakotas.
For the rice growers of the South there
have been introduced 46 varieties from
different parts of the world, among them
the one-hundred-day rices-early sorts,
which, in Japan, give crops when ordi
nary rices fail.
The fruit-growers of our tropical pos
sessions have had their interest in mango
growing stimulated by the fruiting of
some of our East Indian fine-flavored
varieties. All the local nurseymen are
ready to sell in quantity several of the in
troductions of the department, and not
only are the experiment stations of Ha
waii and Porto Rico taking up this fruit,
but, what is especially important, private
plantation owners are planting out orch
ards of our introduced sorts.
The growing scarcity of wood for man
ufacturing purposes has led the depart
ment to make some extensive investiga
tions of bamboo culture in Japan and
other countries. Already a number of
varieties have been introduced and steps
have just been taken for the inaugura
tion of a considerable number of plan
tations of these important plants in dif
ferent parts of the South.
During the spring and summer of 1907
a new date garden was established at
Indio, California. A new date garden has
also been established at Laredo, Texas, in
a part of the Rio Grande Valley where
the climate in spring and early summer
is the hottest in the United States. It is
believed that good dates can be grown
in this part of Texas. The date palms
in the Mecca garden, now from two to
three years old, have begun to fruit
freely, and the famous Deglet Noor and
a number of other choice varities have
ripened perfectly, in spite of the fact that
the season has been unusually cool. Dur
ing the past year much interest has been
taken in the planting of seedling date
orchards in the hope of securing new
varieties better adapted to American
climatic conditions.
Altogether some
15o,ooo date seeds have been planted in
cooperation with growers in California,
Arizona, and Texas. These growers will
receive one or two offshots from im
ported date palms for every 250 date
seedlings set out in proper form.
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